THE


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BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE


AVICULTURAL SOCIETY.



VOL. V. —No. 60. All rights reserved. OCTOBER, 1899.



THE CHINESE BULBUL.


Pycnonotus sinensis.


By A. G. Butler, Ph.D.


This is rather a pretty bird, mostly ashy and olive-

yellowish above ; brownish, yellow and white below; the head

and neck may be roughly described as black and brown with

conspicuous white patches on crown, sides of head and throat;

the wing and tail feathers dark brown edged with yellow.


I have been unable to come across any notes on the

nesting habits of this Bulbul, yet it must be a tolerably widely

distributed and common species : there has been a fair number

in the market this year, and I secured a healthy example on

June 8th which I still possess: I feed it upon my soft mixture,

orange, banana, and mealworms.


Dr. Russ seems to have been unacquainted with this bird

when he published his Handbook in 1887, but it is included in

volume II. of his larger work “ Die fremdlandischen Weich-

futterfresser,” published during the present year: he quotes

the following short note on its habits from Pere David. “ The

bird is abundantly distributed over the whole south of China up

to the neighbourhood of the river Nautsekiang. It is evidently

a very gentle and tame bird, which one sees throughout the

year in the gardens at Shanghai, but never in the woods or in the

mountains. It confines itself continually to cultivated country

where berries and insects are never lacking to it. Sitting upon

the top of a bamboo or tree it gives voice to a deep, tolerably

pleasant sounding, but little varied song.”


Dr. Russ speaks of having received this species hap¬

hazard : he says that “ when chasing its mate, it hops round her

either 011 branches or the ground with highly erected crest and

nape feathers, drooping wings and fan-like tail, it indeed appears

to be white-headed ; but then it puffs out its entire plumage, so

that it seems considerably larger than it actually is. Now it gets



